The painful character which the question of the role and tasks of the trade unions has acquired is explained by the fact that it was cast too early in the form of factional struggle. This question, a broad, boundless question, cannot be approached in such a hurry, as we approached it, and it is above all in this – in the hurried approach, in the excessive haste – that I blame Comrade Trotsky. It has happened to every one of us, and will happen, to bring before the Central Committee theses that are insufficiently prepared, because all our work is carried on in the utmost haste. A minor error, hurrying has happened to all of us. This error, in itself an ordinary one, from which you will not cure yourselves because the objective conditions of the situation are too difficult. But all the more cautiously must we treat questions of a factional character, questions that are disputed. Because here it is too easy even for a person not very hot-headed – which I cannot say of my opponent – to fall into this error. And so, in order to show graphically and to pass directly to the essence of the matter, I shall now read you the fundamental points from Trotsky’s theses.

Here, in his pamphlet, in thesis 12, at the end, Comrade Trotsky writes:

“We observe the fact that, as the tasks of the economy come to the fore, many trade unionists come out ever more sharply and irreconcilably against the prospect of ‘fusion’ and the practical conclusions that flow from it. Among these trade unionists we find Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky.

More than that. Fighting off the new tasks and methods, many trade unionists develop in their midst a spirit of corporate exclusiveness, of hostility toward the new workers being drawn into the given sphere of the economy, and in this way they actually support the survivals of trade particularism among the trade union organised workers.”

I could quote many such passages from Trotsky’s pamphlet. I ask, from the standpoint of a factional appearance: does it become so authoritative a person, so major a leader, to come out in this way against party comrades? I am certain that 99 per cent, apart from comrades who have already quarrelled, will say that one cannot come out like that.

If Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky were guilty, or could be suspected of being guilty, of, say, immediately refusing to sign the Brest Peace or immediately refusing to wage war – I would understand such a speech. Revolutionary expediency is higher than formal democratism. But to approach it at such a moment with such rashness – that is a fundamental mistake. It must not be done. In this point it is said that many trade unionists develop in their midst a spirit of hostility and exclusiveness. What is this? What kind of talk is this, and in what language? Can one approach the matter like that? If I said earlier that I might perhaps manage to “buffer” and not speak out in the discussion because it is harmful to fight with Trotsky, since it is harmful for us, harmful for the party, harmful for the republic, after this pamphlet I said it was necessary to speak out.

Trotsky writes that “many trade unionists develop a spirit of hostility toward the new workers” – how can that be? If, indeed, many trade unionists develop in their midst a “spirit of hostility toward the new workers,” then it is necessary to point out those who are developing that spirit of hostility. And if this is not pointed out, then it is shaking up, it is a bureaucratic approach to the matter. Even if there is a spirit of hostility toward new workers there, one cannot speak like that. Trotsky accuses Lozovsky and Tomsky of bureaucratism. And I would say the opposite. One cannot even read further here because the approach has spoiled everything, it has poured a spoonful of tar into the honey, and however much honey he pours, everything is already spoiled.

Who is to blame that many trade unionists develop a spirit of hostility toward the new workers? Of course, the buffer man or the Tsektranist will say – the trade unionists.

And essentially, things have been swept up here like a snowstorm now sweeping, invented, tangled up. But in this, comrades, we must sort things out and seize the essence. And the essence is that a series of tactless actions arouses a spirit of hostility in the mass. My opponent asserts that there were people who developed a spirit of hostility. This shows that the question is fundamentally wrong. We must sort it out. In November the All-Russia Conference met, and there this little word “shaking up” was thrown out. Trotsky made a mistake in speaking like that. Here it is politically clear that such an approach will provoke a split and will topple the dictatorship of the proletariat.

We must understand that the trade unions are not a department like the people’s commissariats, but that they represent the whole united proletariat, that this is a special department and cannot be approached in that way. And when the question arose of an incorrect approach threatening a split, I said: “Don’t chatter about broad discussions for the time being, go into a commission and there carefully clarify the matter.” And the comrades say: “No, how is that possible, that is a violation of democratism.” Comrade Bukharin even went so far as to start talking about the “sacred slogan of workers’ democracy.” That is literally his words. I read that and… I nearly crossed myself. (Laughter.) I assert that an error always begins with something small and becomes big. Disagreements always begin with something small. Everyone has had a sore, but if that sore begins to fester, a fatal illness can result. And this thing is precisely the festering of a sore. In November they talk about shaking up, and in December there is already a big mistake.

The December Plenum of the Central Committee was against us. At the December Plenum, the majority joined Trotsky, and a resolution by Trotsky and Bukharin was carried, which you have of course read. But even the Central Committee members who were not in sympathy with us had to acknowledge that the water transport workers were more right than the Tsektran. That is a fact. And when I ask: what was the guilt of the Tsektran? The answer must be: not that you exerted pressure, that is your merit, but that you permitted an extreme of bureaucratism.

But if you have understood this extreme, you must correct it and not argue against the correction. That is all. The struggle against bureaucratism will require decades. It is a most difficult struggle, and anyone who tells you that we will at once free ourselves from bureaucratism if we adopt anti-bureaucratic platforms will simply be a charlatan with a taste for fine words. The extremes of bureaucratism must be corrected now. We must catch these extremes of bureaucratism and correct them, without calling the bad good and black white. The workers and peasants understand that they themselves still have to learn to administer, but they understand perfectly well that there are also extremes of bureaucratism, and if you do not want to correct them, you are doubly guilty. You must correct them in good time, as the water transport workers pointed out, and not when others have pointed them out.

And excellent workers have also happened to make mistakes. In the Tsektran there are magnificent workers, and we shall appoint them, and we shall correct the extremes of bureaucratism they have permitted. Comrade Trotsky says that Comrades Tomsky and Lozovsky – trade unionists – are guilty of developing in their midst a spirit of hostility toward the new workers. But this is monstrous. One would have to be almost ill, or such a hothead who knows no measure, to talk like that.

From this haste it follows that they quarrel, come forward with platforms, write that someone is guilty, and the upshot is that everything has been spoiled at the root.

You know, when people quarrel, what happens two days later – they remember their relatives to the tenth generation and will tell the story. We ask: “What did you quarrel about?” – “Well, his aunt, and his grandfather.” – “No, not now, but then, what did you quarrel about?” It turns out that in two days so many differences have been spun.

The Tsektran committed a series of exaggerations, harmful exaggerations, unnecessary bureaucratism. Exaggeration is permitted everywhere. There are departments where in Moscow alone there are thirty thousand employees. It is no small matter. Cure this thing, get through this wall. We must not be afraid, must not think that someone has offended someone, that someone was set on. If we start a factional struggle and say – Tomsky is guilty, who developed in the masses a spirit of hostility toward the Tsektranists, then that will be a complete distortion of the matter, that spoils all work at the root, spoils at the root the whole attitude toward the trade unions. And the trade unions are the entire proletariat. If we insist on this and put this thing to a vote on platforms, that leads to the fall of Soviet power.

If the party splits away from the trade unions, then the party is guilty, and that certainly spells the ruin of Soviet power. We have no other support than the millions of proletarians, who are unconscious, often and frequently ignorant, undeveloped, illiterate, but who, as proletarians, follow their party. They have for twenty years considered that this party is their own. And after that comes a class which is not ours, which may perhaps be for us if we are clever and conduct a correct policy within our own class. We have reached the greatest moment in our revolution, we have roused the masses of proletarians, we have roused the masses of the poor in the countryside to conscious support of us. No revolution has ever done this. There is no class that can overthrow us: the majority of the proletarians and the rural poor are for us. No one can ruin us except our own mistakes. In this “if” lies the whole point. If we provoke a split in which we are guilty, everything will collapse for the reason that the trade unions are not only a department, but the source from which all our power is drawn. This is the class that was created by the economy of capitalism as the economic unifier, that unites the millions of scattered, dispersed peasants by its industry. And therefore one proletarian is stronger than two hundred peasants.

And that is why this whole approach of Trotsky’s is incorrect. I could take any thesis and analyse it, but then it would take not one hour but ten hours, and everyone would run away, because it would be boring. In every thesis you will find the same approach, fundamentally wrong: “many trade unionists develop a spirit of hostility.” In the mass of the trade unions a spirit of hostility toward us has developed through the fault of mistakes, through the fault of the bureaucratism that has been permitted at the top, including by myself, because I appointed the Glavpolitput. What is to be done? Correct it? The extremes of the Tsektran must be corrected, having understood that the party is firm and stands on its own feet, with its own head. We do not renounce either appointmentism or dictatorship. A worker who has gone through the twenty-year school in Russia will not go along with that. If we support this mistake, then we shall certainly fall, and this mistake is contained here, and this is the root of the matter.

Trotsky says that Lozovsky and Tomsky are fighting off the new tasks. If this can be proved, the matter changes. What are the new tasks?

Here we are told: “production atmosphere,” “production democracy,” “production role.” I already said from the very beginning, at the discussion on December 30, that these are words which the worker does not understand, that all this enters into the task of production propaganda[19]. We do not renounce dictatorship, or one-man management, they remain, I shall support them, but only not defend stupidity and extremes. “Production atmosphere” is a funny phrase, which the workers will laugh at. Speak more simply and clearly – it is all production propaganda. But a special institution has been created for that.

Concerning the raising of the production role of the unions I replied on December 30, I replied in the press, that there is a resolution by Comrade Rudzutak, which was adopted at the conference on November 5. Comrades Trotsky and Bukharin said that this resolution was written by the Tsektran. Although this fact has been refuted, I shall say: if they wrote it, then who is fighting off? The trade unions adopted it, the Tsektran wrote it. Well and good, after this children should not quarrel and stir up factional disagreement. Does Comrade Trotsky have new tasks? No. And what is new is worse. That is just the point. Comrade Trotsky is waging a war in order to obtain from the party a condemnation of those who are fighting off the new tasks, and the greatest sinners named are Tomsky and Lozovsky.

In Rudzutak’s resolution everything is said more clearly and simply, without “production atmosphere” or “production democracy.” It is written there clearly that every member of the union must adopt a conscious attitude to the absolutely necessary raising of productivity in the country. This is written in simple, comprehensible language. Everything is said better than by Trotsky, more fully, because there is added a bonus in kind and disciplinary courts. Without this, all talk about raising transport, achieving improvement – is mere verbiage. Let us set up commissions, let us establish disciplinary courts. In the Tsektran an extreme was committed on this path. We propose to say that extremes are extremes, and it is useless to defend them with new tasks; they must be corrected. We do not renounce coercion. No sensible worker would ever go so far as to think that we can at present manage without coercion, or that the unions can now be disbanded or that all production can be handed over to them. It was Comrade Shlyapnikov who could blurt out something like that.

In the whole speech of Comrade Shlyapnikov there is one excellent passage, where he said that in Sormovo they had had an experiment, and absenteeism fell by 30 per cent. They say that is true, but I am a distrustful person, I am for sending a commission to investigate, to compare Nizhny with Petrograd. This can be done not at a meeting, but in a business commission. Trotsky says that they want to counteract fusion. That is perfect nonsense. Comrade Trotsky says we must go forward; if it is a good machine, then forward, and if the machine has slipped to one side, then back. And this is useful for the party, because we must study the experience.

There is no production, but we have set to work producing bad theses. Such work requires study and experience. You, trade unionists, you, miners, are busy with your work. Permit me, if you have set to this work, then interrogate, demand figures, check twenty times, do not believe a single word, and then say what has come of it. If it has turned out well, move forward; if badly, move back. This is work, not talk. That is what should have been done at party meetings.

At the Eighth Congress of Soviets I said that we should have less politics[20]. In saying that, I thought that we would not make political mistakes, yet three years after the Soviet revolution we are talking about syndicalism – that is a disgrace. If I had been told half a year ago that I would be writing about syndicalism, I would have preferred to write about the Donbas. But now we are being diverted, and the party is being dragged back. A small error grows into a big error. Now I shall move on to Comrade Shlyapnikov. Comrade Trotsky, in thesis 16 of his theses, correctly defines Shlyapnikov’s mistake.

Bukharin, on the occasion of his buffering, clutched at Shlyapnikov, but it would have been better if he had clutched at a straw. He promises compulsory candidatures to the unions. That means the trade union does the appointing. This is the same thing as Shlyapnikov is saying. The Marxists all over the world fought syndicalism. For more than twenty years we have been fighting in the party, we have proved to the workers by deeds, not words, that the party is a special thing, that it requires conscious people, ready for self-sacrifice, that it makes mistakes but corrects them, that it leads and selects people who know what road still lies before us, what obstacles we still have to pass through. It does not deceive the workers. It does not make promises that cannot be fulfilled. And if you leap over the trade unions, you throw all our work done over three years to the winds, you put everything in question. Comrade Bukharin, with whom I spoke about this mistake, says: “You, Comrade Lenin, are quibbling.”

I understand compulsory candidatures to mean that they will be put forward under the leadership of the Central Committee of the party. And what rights then do we grant? No bloc can then be achieved. The workers and peasants are two different classes. When electricity is spread over the whole land, everywhere – if we accomplish this in twenty years, that will be unheard-of speed. This cannot be done quickly. But then let us talk about handing over rights to the trade unions, and until then it is deception of the workers. The dictatorship of the proletariat is the firmest in the world, because confidence here has been won by deeds, and because the party has strictly seen to it that it does not become diffuse.

And what does this mean?

Does every worker know how to administer the state? Practical people know that these are fairy tales, that our millions of trade union organized workers are going through what we have said – that the trade unions are a school of communism and administration. When they have spent years in this school, they will learn, but this goes slowly. We have not even liquidated illiteracy. We know how workers, linked with peasants, succumb to non-proletarian slogans. Who among the workers has administered? A few thousand in all Russia, no more. If we say that it is not the party that puts forward candidatures and administers, but the trade unions themselves, that will sound very democratic, and with it one might perhaps catch votes, but not for long. This ruins the dictatorship of the proletariat.

Read the decision of the Second Congress of the Comintern{114}. Its decisions and resolutions have gone all over the world. Recently the socialist congress in France showed that in that country, full of the greatest chauvinism, we have won a majority, split the party, thrown out the rotten leaders, and done this against the syndicalists{115}. And they have all accepted our theory, all the best workers, all the best leaders. Even the syndicalists all over the world, the revolutionary syndicalists, are coming to us. I myself have seen American syndicalists who visited us and now say: “Truly, the proletariat cannot govern without a party.” You know this in practice. And to throw ourselves into the arms of syndicalism, to talk about compulsory candidatures to “All-Russia congresses of producers” is entirely out of place for the proletariat. It is dangerous, it undermines the leading role of the party. At present only an insignificant percentage of organized workers are in the country. And the majority of peasants will follow the party because its policy is correct, because in the most difficult time of the Brest Peace the party was able to make temporary sacrifices and retreats, and it turned out right. How can all this be thrown away? Is all this accidental? It is the conquest of what the party has been engaged in for decades. Everyone trusts the Bolsheviks who have gone through the twenty-year party school on their word.

In order to administer, one must have an army of steeled communist revolutionaries; it exists, it is called the party. All this syndicalist nonsense, the compulsory candidatures of producers – all this must be thrown into the wastepaper basket. To take this path means in practice – the party aside, in practice there can be no dictatorship of the proletariat in Russia. This is the point of view which I considered my party duty to set forth to you, which, in my opinion, is set forth in the form of practical theses in the platform called “Draft Resolution of the Tenth Congress of the R.C.P.,” signed by Lenin, Zinoviev, Tomsky, Rudzutak, Kalinin, Kamenev, Lozovsky, Petrovsky, Sergeyev and Stalin. Among them, Lozovsky, who is not a member of the Central Committee, was included because he worked in the trade union commission, from which, unfortunately, Shlyapnikov and Lutovinov left. The workers will judge whether Shlyapnikov did well to leave. If he did not do well, he will be condemned for it. I am confident that all class-conscious workers will adopt this platform, and the present differences in our party will remain a fever of the upper ranks, while the workers will correct them, remain at their posts, uphold party discipline, and by all means, by united, practical, businesslike, cautious work, will raise production and give us complete victory. (Prolonged applause.)

Published on January 25, 1921 in *Bulletin No. 2 of the Second All-Russia Congress of Miners*

Printed according to the text of the bulletin.